transitions: bottle to sippy, formula to milk -- help please

I feel very confused about the transitions. I realize they're separate, but as I keep hearing that both should occur at/about 12 months I've lumped them together in my head. How did you do it?

When you transitioned to milk, whether in a bottle or in a sippy, did you change your schedule at all? I mean, did they get the same amount of milk, at the same times, as they did formula?

DD is pretty good with the sippy and has been for a while. DS just doesn't seem to get it at all. So I don't know when we'll be able to transition (though I'd really really like to!) Did anyone here transition them separately? I'm wondering if seeing his sister drink from the sippy would stimulate DS to do it?

Also, any suggestions on whether to go cold turkey or slowly? That goes for both/either, formula to milk, and/or bottle to sippy.

Thanks so much.

 

I feel very confused about the transitions. I realize they're separate, but as I keep hearing that both should occur at/about 12 months I've lumped them together in my head. How did you do it?

When you transitioned to milk, whether in a bottle or in a sippy, did you change your schedule at all? I mean, did they get the same amount of milk, at the same times, as they did formula?

DD is pretty good with the sippy and has been for a while. DS just doesn't seem to get it at all. So I don't know when we'll be able to transition (though I'd really really like to!) Did anyone here transition them separately? I'm wondering if seeing his sister drink from the sippy would stimulate DS to do it?

Also, any suggestions on whether to go cold turkey or slowly? That goes for both/either, formula to milk, and/or bottle to sippy.

Thanks so much.

 

We started to use the sippy at meal time around 9 months. It took several tries with different types before we found one that they both could use easily. It was the gerber soft spout and didn't hurt their gums/teeth while drinking. We slowly started to drop bottles at around that time and replace that fluid intake with the sippy. Just remember that the older they get they won't need as much as they are getting now because it is replaced with solid food.

As far as the transition, I started giving them small amounts of milk in their sippy at that time. By the time we hit 10 1/2 months, we were down to our last large can of formula. I just mixed it half and half until the formula was gone and then went straight to milk. They were off bottles boy 10 1/2 months. Good luck. Just remember that they may not both get it at the same time. Try different sippy cups.

Angela

 

We started the transition to sippies at 10mos. They had four bottles a day at 7, 11, 3 and 7. I started by giving them a sippy of the same amount of formula in place of the bottle at 11am. They did well, so after just three days I did the same at 3pm. Then at the end of the week I did the 7am bottle to sippy. I stuck with that for another week and then noticed that they were drinking their bedtime bottle like the sippy, sipping on it instead of sucking, so I tried cups at bedtime to and they did great. That got us off bottles by 10.5 mos. For the formula transition, I started replacing 2oz of the formula with milk and not heating it quite as much. Then after a few days I went to half and half. A few more days and I gave them all milk. A few more days with a few seconds less heating each time til they were getting it right out of the fridge. My oldest fought the transition so I did cold turkey her one feeding at a time. I took the lunch nursing first for a week, then snack/dinner feeding for a week, breakfast for a week then bedtime. It took a whole month, but when she realized it was cup or nothing she did fine. Good luck with the switch!

 

At 11 months I started giving them their morning "bottle" in a tupperware sippy with their breakfast. The tupperware ones don't have a valve, so are easy to figure out. I would give the remaining formula in the bottle after the meal.

At 11 1/2 months, we went from warm formula in bottles one day, to cold milk in sippies the next. Honestly, they didn't do very well with sippies until the bottles were gone. They really didn't have any trouble with the transition and we never looked back.

 

Hey Lisa!

We did them as separate transitions. Ours started using the sippy at daycare around 10 months. We kept doing bottles at home, but around 11 months we switched the daytime ones (on weekends) to sippies. I think we switched the lunch one first. We'd give them a bottle with their mid-morning snack, then a sippy at lunch, then a bottle with their afternoon snack, and a bottle after dinner. These were still all with formula. Then we switched one snack bottle to a sippy, and then the other. It wasn't really very organized -- some days we did it, others not. Eventually they were down to just bottles at wakeup and bedtime, and sippies the rest of the time.

We also were a bit more lenient with Sarah than with Amy, because Amy is much better with the sippy. Sometimes we gave Sarah a bottle after meals. Not very often though, because it made Amy mad!

We switched cold turkey from formula to milk, the day of their 12-month checkup (when the ped said it was OK). We were in the middle of the bottles-to-sippies transition at the time, but we just replaced all the formula with milk -- same times, same amounts, same delivery method. They did not even seem to notice the change.

Now (14 months) they are still getting a bottle at bedtime, but otherwise sippies. I'm not very consistent about when it's milk and when it's water, except that it's always milk at wakeup and bedtime.

Good luck -- it seems very confusing and overwhelming, but there is no one right or wrong way to do it. Eventually you will get there -- there's no hurry, and no real need to do it right at 12 months.

 

We did it separately because the milk transition was nothing and the sippy transition was a bit more difficult. For the milk, I gave them a bottle that was half and half and they didn't even notice so I tried all milk for the next bottle and they didn't complain at all. It was so easy. One of my daughters really fought the sippy cups and would only really use it if you held it for her. I tried going slowly with the transition and keeping the morning and night bottles and just switching during the day, but after a while, I just switched them all and she just didn't drink as much for a while. I also wound up moving to the straw sippy cups as they took to them better. It was frustrating while I was going through it, but it probably only lasted a month in total. Yes, we kept them on their same bottle schedule in the beginning. Good luck.

 

I made the milk transition first by replacing one ounce of their room temp formula with one ounce of cold milk every 2 days or so. This way they were drinking cold milk straight from the fridge and didn't notice the change.

At first, I didn't alter our schedule in any way but that did lead to the girls drinking too much milk and it constipated them. In order to get them down to 16 oz/day I introduced juice (mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with water) as a substitute. Not the healthiest thing but it made them finally drink something other than milk. When we were down to 16 oz/day of milk, I started further diluting their juice until they were just drinking water.

Neither of my girls were any good at the sippy and really could care less about them. Since this was the case, we did the switch from the bottle cold turkey. One day I put away the bottles and gave them sippies instead. They weren't too happy but Ainsley was good at the sippy by the end of the day and Sierra was good after 3 days. The main problem we had was they were dripping a lot of drink out of their mouth so I made sure they had bibs on all the time during that transition. I also took the valves out of the sippies so they didn't have to suck so hard to get the drink. I put the valves back in about a week later.

 

I started giving the sippy at meals with water at 8 months - I haven't given milk in the sippy yet. I switched cold turkey to milk the day after their first birthday (with no problems). They took to the milk fine. I still haven't tried cold milk - I still take the chill off.